Public Wifi Security: How a Minor Google Screwup Turned Into a Privacy Freakout

In light of last week’s drama over “Google-4-Doodle”— in which the search giant was questioned for alleged privacy violations by collecting kids’ personal information – more people are discussing what privacy protections are needed to protect kids. This article on PaidContent says “Google should be careful about not collecting more data than it needs, especially in projects unrelated to its core business,” and also mentions last year’s Google wifi “spying” scandal. Most importantly, it notes that “the remarkable fact about that ongoing scandal is that the only data Google collected was unencrypted data going over public networks. If anything, Google did us a favor by reminding us that public wifi networks aren’t secure. Any hacker with some rudimentary software can sit outside a coffee shop and collect the data of users at such a location, and possibly use it for nefarious purposes.”